The Yaklich Effect

Let's start here: I'm never going to be able to bring myself to not say Jordan Poole. I just can't.

With that out of the way, Yaklich has been phenomenal; while Michigan's defensive improvement has been widely noted I still don't think he's getting his due. Despite working with a lineup that has some defensive limitations, he has M up to 11th(!!!) in adjusted defense on KenPom, a significant leap from last year's finish of 69th. No John Beilein team has finished higher than 34th, and that was in his last year at Richmond in 2002.

TrueBlue2003 had a great look last week at one adjustment Yaklich made to better accomodate the team's personnel. That's been indicative of a wider trend. He's introduced multiple variations on the 2-3 zone—you could see him adapt from a wide spread to a tightly packed zone in the PSU game—and they've been remarkably effective as a changeup; per Synergy, Michigan has the best zone defense by points per possession allowed (a paltry 0.692) among high major teams. They've only played 78 zone possessions (a fast-paced game's worth), so the sample is small, but there's much more in the way of numbers that indicate Yaklich is doing a remarkable job.

The main source of Michigan's defensive prowess comes from their ability to keep opponents out of high-efficiency scoring situations, especially transition. We've discussed M's ability to both prevent and shut down opponent fast break opportunities before and the numbers just keep getting better.

The Wolverines are in a league of their own among high major teams at combining those two skills. They rank second among high majors in transition PPP, allowing 0.845 PPP—rather incredibly, an ever-so-slightly better mark than they allow in halfcourt defense (0.858).* They rank first among high majors (and fifth in all of D-I) at preventing transition chances in the first place; they comprise only 11.0% of opponent possessions. Only three other high majors allow less than 0.90 PPP on transition opportunities; they rank 182nd (Louisville), 271st (Cincinnati), and 345th (West Virginia) at preventing those transition chances. That is, in a word, bonkers.

Michigan's analytics-minded approach to defense extends well beyond keeping opponents from running. I put together Synergy stats last night comparing the play types Michigan's offense runs and their efficiency versus the same numbers from opposing offenses against M's defense. This table could be a lot prettier but it shows how well the Wolverines have forced opponents into shots that generally aren't very efficient (while the offense is, as usual, doing the opposite):

click to embiggen

Michigan generally forces pick-and-roll ballhanders to finish themselves, allowing Zavier Simpson to harass guards into tough shots while the rest of the defense stays home and prevents more effective scoring chances: passes to the roll man and kickouts to open shooters. Opponents funnel a ton of their possessions through the post, and even though M is downright bad at post defense, it's still not very efficient offense. They're really good at contesting the rare putback opportunities they allow.

This is a Moneyball defense and I can't wait to see what Yaklich does when next year's team gets an infusion of athleticism while the majority of this group comes back. He's entered the conversation, at least in my mind, as a potential Beilein successor; combining Beilein's offensive principles with Yaklich's defense could produce remarkable results. Of late, is already is.

*A note on these numbers: Synergy counts putbacks as their own possession for PPP so they can properly separate out each scouting category, which is why these numbers are lower than Michigan's actual PPP allowed.

[Hit THE JUMP for discussion of Simpson's and Matthews' respective Achilles heels, Jordan Poole's comparable players, and a reader-submitted photoshop.]

There is a predictable set of bins people fling themselves in whenever it's revealed that someone playing college sports got money to do so.

"DAY OF GREAT SHAME" BIN: A rapidly dwindling category mostly filled by NCAA administrators who are literally paid to misunderstand economics. Also includes revanchist portions of NCAA fanbases, the sizes of which directly correspond to perceived cleanliness. Michigan and Notre Dame have tons of these fans; Memphis not so much.

"BUT THE DETAILS" BIN: A slightly woke-r segment of the populace, this group is hypothetically okay with paying players as long as you have a 100-page congressional bill that covers every last eventuality. Like to bring up Title IX as if that disqualifies the Olympic option. Frequently baffled by capitalism despite participating in it daily. Extremely concerned that some people might get paid more than other people. Like positing the status quo as a potential dystopia. NIMBYs for college sports. They are in favor of buildings, just not this building or that building. Or that other building.

"WHO CARES" BIN: The woke and cynical. See bagmen as folk heroes, more or less. Advocate burning down the system but fight and/or downplay anyone who would talk about the hidden details as a "cop." Sometimes right about this. Hate the status quo. Wish to preserve the status quo, at least as far as the under-the-table aspects go. Doesn't correlate a willingness to ignore mutually-agreed upon rules with, say, screwing around on your wife with every prostitute you can find. Or having a fraudulent department in your university. Or ignoring a rape.

At this late date, the first group is hopeless. The second is irritating and largely arguing in bad faith when they bring up things like "what if boosters gave players a lot of cash?!?!?!" I fell into the Andy Staples hole a few days ago by quote-tweeting these uniquely infuriating takes on why making the current system more equitable is impossible. I refer you to Twitter if you'd like to relive this dark period.

I'd like to talk to the third group, though. The Who Cares bin frequently overlooks any potential upsides to the underground enterprise coming to light. Deadspin's Barry Petchesky:

What is the purpose of any straight college-scandal reporting, other than shaming players for trying to earn a tiny fraction of the money they’re earning for their schools and the NCAA? (I actually have an answer for this! The only reason fans and readers really care about recruiting scandals is because they’re hoping to see their rivals punished, and to be able to hold it over their heads for all eternity. Everything is fandom.)

That is certainly a reason but it's far from the only one. Without intervention there is no way the NCAA's system changes. Revenues have skyrocketed for twenty years and the only concessions the players have gotten have been either court-enforced or attempts to head off a PR disaster.

Without someone coming in and ripping the top off the anthill* this will continue in perpetuity. And while college basketball players are currently recouping some of their value under the table, it's nowhere near what they would in an open system. Patrick Hruby explains at... uh... Deadspin:

It’s no secret that the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s amateurism rules suppress above-board athlete compensation. Bowen’s supposed price tag shows that players are being shortchanged under the table, too. Let’s do the napkin math. First, compare NCAA basketball to the National Basketball Association—or any major sport where athletes enjoy their full rights and protections under antitrust and labor law, instead of being treated like second-class American citizens. ...

For schools at the highest level of the sport—that is, top 10-caliber programs that need the very best recruits to remain elite both in terms of winning lots of games and reaping the financial rewards that come with winning lots of games—the same NCPA study estimates that the average player is actually worth about $900,000 a year. And even that amount may be selling Bowen short, because if Louisville’s players received 50 percent of theirschool’s basketball revenues, they’d each be worth $1.72 million annually.

This money is instead going to worthless things like waterfalls and football locker rooms with VR headsets and Jim Delany. It will continue going to these things until such time as it is obvious to all that the NCAA's rules are not only unjust but entirely unenforceable, save the unlikely intervention of a subpoena-bearing organization. It will continue until and unless the NCAA is faced with a choice between its rules and money. An NCAA tournament in which no one gets to see Duke or a half-dozen other blue-bloods lose takes money out of CBS's pockets and therefore the NCAA's pockets. And we know what the NCAA will do: it will bend as much as it needs to maximize the amount of money entering the pockets of its executives.

That is at the very least the restoration of name and image rights to players and the expansion of the Olympic model to all sports, because that doesn't cost the NCAA anything. The FBI's investigation speeds up that day—and if it's big enough it might prompt it directly. Therefore it is good, sports tribalism aside.

*[Or a player strike at a key moment. See my annual plea for a basketball team in the national title game to go on strike for 15 no-commercial minutes at the scheduled tip time.]

THE EVENT: So long as Michigan survives Thursday (and your band of health-compromised bloggers do as well), we’re going to get together this Friday at 2:30 at Wolverine Brewing for our first MGo-gamewatch party. Sponsor Nick Hopwood of Peak Wealth Management, who also sponsors this post, offered to cover the first couple rounds and some food for our tables. Please let us know if you’re coming so we can get a halfway decent count (if we run out of space signups get first priority: https://goo.gl/forms/t0F28mhfnYRRbKPh2

Also if you’re in New York, Dewey’s Pub down the street from MSG tends to collect the MGoBlog contingent after the game.

Legal disclosure in tiny font: Calling Nick our official financial planner is not intended as financial advice; Nick is an advertiser who financially supports MGoBlog. MGoBlog is not responsible for any advice or other communication provided to an investor by any financial advisor, and makes no representations or warranties as to the suitability of any particular financial advisor and/or investment for a specific investor.

Brian: Ugh, naming a team without a center is like naming a football team without an OL. My pet peeve is first team all conference basketball teams that wouldn't be very good. And this is a season with Ethan Happ and Isaac Haas!

Seth: Haas got so much love all season on BTN I was both surprised and totally fine with him being left out. I But I agree even Beilein wouldn't play a lineup of Bridges-Palmer-KBD-Carr-Edwards.

Ace: Jackson freshman of the year, KBD player of the year, Duncan Robinson(!) 6th man of the year.

Seth: This is the part where Ace is mad Poole didn't make any of these teams.

Ace: They probably got the right guys since Poole emerged so late, though that lineup doesn’t pass the “this would work on the court” test.

Brian: Two pure Cs might be worse than none. Ugh, all broken, I'm just naming my first team because guh.

C Isaac Haas. Not Haas's fault he's got a windmill on the bench behind him and a team around him. Haas has per-minute stats that stack up with anyone, spearheaded the nation's #15 eFG defense, and plays on an actually good team. Happ's numbers are silly in part because he has one other guy who can play on his team; he's more effective on offense but doesn't bring anywhere near the rim protection Haas does. The Mo mismatch applies to both of these guys; Haas was much better at attacking at the other end of the floor.

Ace: Happ is also way worse at free throws, which is a big deal for both of them. Totally agree with this one. In general, everyone seems to have overvalued raw numbers.

Sponsor note. Good to see you got out of jail after punching that police horse. Hope you didn't call Richard Hoeg about that. That would be silly to do, use your one phone call on a small business lawyer instead of a criminal defense attorney. But now that you're out, maybe you've got an idea for a small company that doesn't involve any sort of jail time. Maybe a company that sells extremely lifelike horse statues for punching in the aftermath of Super Bowl wins? Think of the wear and tear saved on horse and man.

Listen, this guy even recorded our practices and broke down our mistakes the following days like it was game-film.

We watched drills! I am not lying when I say he would show us a simple passing drill we did the day before so he could correct guys on their technique. I hadn’t been corrected on my passing technique since I was 10.

It was time-consuming and mentally consuming, but we were definitely better off for this attention to detail. I never felt underprepared for any game, and it was a huge part of any success we had during my college career. Just don’t turn all the lights off during one of those hour-long film sessions, or you’re going to hear snoring coming from those comfortable seats.

Film was always the first thing we turned to when preparing for an opponent. It helped us prepare for all aspects of the next game. We broke down the basic components of their offense and defense, and even a majority of their favorite plays and what they called them.

Overall, we looked deeply at strengths, weaknesses, statistics, and tendencies of each team and player. Then the coaches would combine all of that to set up specific strategies to attack their defense and to halt their players, plays, and overall offensive system.

This would change from game to game depending on who we played. We’d change how we wanted to guard certain screens on and off the ball and other actions away from the ball based on their offensive system and personnel.

We would trap a Talor Battle ball screen until he gave the ball up and then full out deny him to make other players score, but that strategy didn’t happen with Northwestern’s “Princeton offense” under Bill Carmody (one of the most time-consuming scouts we did because of their unique off-ball actions coupled with young players playing major minutes that had never defended them before).

The upshot is: everyone knows what Beilein is trying to do already and it doesn't matter. He does not explain why taking a Michigan grad transfer immediately makes the team in question a thousand times better, though.

Brief hockey bracketology update. Not really enough for its own post, but: Michigan is 10th after this weekend's action. Avoiding a pitfall against Arizona State didn't help much because 1) it was expected and 2) results elsewhere did not go their way. Most notably, Penn State played itself into a two-thirds shot at an at-large with a sweep of Minnesota. Michigan is still 96% in per CHN's Pairwise Predictor, with only a 30% shot of even being on the four line.

Michigan gets Wisconsin this weekend at Yost in a best two-out-of-three series. The worst case scenario featuring a series win (three games and a subsequent loss to OSU) would put them at 12th, give or take some movement around them. It would take a huge number of things going the wrong way to boot them in that case. A three-game series loss is the same situation.

If Michigan gets swept they'll move down to ~14th, which is Danger Zone time. Two stolen bids would boot them, one if someone got hot and moved past them. They'd still be 50/50 to make it; there would be a lot of nervous rooting for favorites in various conference tournaments.

On the more optimistic side of the ledger, Michigan's ceiling is #7. Not that it matters, because here's your regionals setup:

One West regional is in South Dakota. The other is more or less in Philly. You'll love next year's too:

Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and the Pittsburgh area provide about a quarter of college hockey's teams. They get nothing for the next two years. 0/10 sites.

The somewhat good news is that the NCAA has not announced sites in 2020 yet. That's unusual and may indicate that the powers that be are finally moving away from the "how empty can we make this building in the middle of nowhere" era. Home sites, please.

I have a take that was once lukewarm, and is now hot, and should be freezing cold. Michigan’s Maurice Hurst is the best interior defensive line prospect in the 2018 NFL Draft, and it is not close. Vita Vea, Derrick Nnadi, Taven Bryan, Da’Ron Payne and others all offer intriguing traits and characteristics, but none of them can make the consistent high-value impact that Hurst can.

In terms of explosiveness, Bryan is the only other top interior defensive lineman who can rival Hurst, and he isn’t nearly as flexible or nuanced in his rush game after that initial burst. Hurst has the ability to quickly capture a guard’s edge, and then either turn a tight corner to the pocket or get back underneath with a counter.

He's 16 so could be a 2019 or 2020 if he decides on the same route Mo did. Michigan seems like an excellent fit for him if he does:

Franz Wagner ('01) from Alba Berlin is shooting the lights out at #AdidasNGT a bit low release but quick, repeatable and effortless. Grew, body is filling out. Didn't improve much ball skills but still underdeveloped and worse case scenario will be high level shooter w/ pos size

As a bonus, imagine all the "oh no not another one" takes from opposing fanbases.

Random things about Syracuse. I was curious about how Tyus Battle was doing so I clicked over to Kenpom's Syracuse page and found the strangest team in the country. 'Cuse runs nothing but 2-3 zone, of course, and recruits to that model. This explains some of the things. It doesn't explain all of it:

Syracuse has thee of the top ten MPG players in the country. Battle, who has been off the floor for a total of eight minutes since December 2nd, is #1. Frank Howard has missed 32 minutes since that same date. That's a span of 23 games.

Syracuse is the tallest team in the country, has the fewest bench minutes, and gives up the highest A/FGM rate in the country;—74%.

Other stats that are extremely extreme but not quite that extreme: they're 311th in eFG%, 318th at 3s, and 275t hat giving up steals. Opponents chuck threes 44% of the time, which is 332nd. OTOH they have the #2 block rate in the country, the #15 teal rate, the #12 2P% allowed, and the #44 3P% allowed.

This adds up to the #129 offense and #9 defense.

It's a weird team man. FWIW, Battle is keeping his head above water despite a 31% shot rate and 49/31 shooting splits by not turning it over much and hitting a bunch of FTs. M filled his spot with Matthews, more or less.

RUTGERS. A valuable addition to the conference!

Congratulations to Rutgers, who for the first time finish the B1G season with >50% of the win total of the 13th place team. pic.twitter.com/ZpabUe09tc

Michigan used to set people on fire with some frequency. Burke or Stauskas would get off to one of those starts, and it would rain death from above on opponents. Three specific examples jump out: a game at Illinois in 2014 where Michigan scored ten points in two minutes and finished the first half with 52, the official-twitter-shruggie Texas game—specifically the 31-6 run that induced said shruggie, and the Elite Eight game against Florida where the Gators let Stauskas shoot six open threes from the same spot on the floor.

This hasn't happened much since the Godmode guys headed to the NBA—last year's MSU game at Crisler is the pleasant exception—and hadn't really happened this year at all unless you count the ludicrous speed Purdue game. Since the above paragraph focuses on the opponent being on fire, not everything touched or looked upon by either player on either team, we'll exclude it. This was Michigan's first incineration of the season. Don't take it from me, take it from this guy in the background who beheld MAAR's half-closing three and decided that the last place he wanted to be was the Homesure Lending Center.

What a good time to incinerate a decent team on the road, the last game of the regular season. Brings a feeling of zesty confidence headed into the post-season. Dreams of Muhammad Ali Abdur-Rahkman doing that to a one-seed in the Sweet 16, sort of thing.

[Paul Sherman]

----------------------------

And of course there is the annual self-abasement for the thoughts that you could not dismiss during the early bit when a 15 point hole against UCLA looked like an NIT bid on the horizon. As per usual we've been poking around Bart Torvik's site to catch the wave, but Torvik made it easy this year:

Two clunkers. One probably due to the compressed schedule, the other that ugly road game against Northwestern's zone. One sketchy game against Minnesota. Otherwise, a lot of pew pew pew and opponents hitting the dirt. Also: Michigan yelling at Purdue that they've been shot and are dead and Purdue going "nuh-uh, I have a forcefield."

This is the way of things. Michigan comes out of the gate slowly because they're trying to get a handle on John Beilein's kaleidoscope offense. You think about the recruits that Michigan missed on and how they would certainly be better than the goons currently in front of your face. Some SEC team with a five star on their roster despite no history of doing anything at all stabs Michigan in the neck. Michigan Basketball Twitter starts discussing successors. Two months later every word from that dark period is memory-holed and we all gather around the fire to talk about subs and super soakers and sing kumbaya.

Sometimes there's a returning core able to avoid that grim early period; sometimes your best player gets injured for the year. Otherwise the script is so familiar by now that JJ Abrams could direct it. The bit at the end where Michigan wins a large number of basketball games in a short period of time is nice.

It's even nicer this year, what with the feds on the case in college basketball. Whatever your opinions about whether the FBI should be looking into this or what college basketball should look like going forward, it is absolutely fantastic to not have your heart skip a beat when Pat Forde tweets.

AGENT IMPLICATES MOST OF COLLEGE BASKETBALL is like, whatever, you know? We're just over here playing five-out and never turning the ball over, like we do. Hope that all works out for you and the FBI.

BULLETS

Stats are kind of eh. Michigan got up so much that the second half was for Chris Farley evaluations and Beilein's patented prevent offense. Things got sloppy, and there was a lot of late clock stuff, and so I'm not sure how seriously to take anything in the box score. Except one thing.

Muhammad takes the wheel! I can't promise you that 41% usage is a career record for MAAR but it sure as hell is. 28 points on 22 shot equivalents, seven assists, two turnovers, and two OREBs as a bonus—never before and probably never again. Unless it's the glasses. But MAAR is the one guy on the team who can both shoot and drive with efficiency and is thus Michigan's best hope for a ball-dominant postseason star.

Michigan, being Michigan, isn't going to have many games where its top usage guy is over 30, let alone 40. It doesn't have to. It does need someone who can be efficient up to 24 or 28. Hopefully this Rahk renaissance lasts through the next month.

[Paul Sherman]

Matthews scored some points. Okay, maybe two things. The second thing is that Charles Matthews saw the ball go through the basket in the second half. That made for his first non-miserable outing since Wisconsin and only his 5th in the last 16. Perhaps more encouragingly than that was his usage, which dipped to 21% as MAAR took the wheel. Matthews provides excellent defense and solid OREBs so if his tendency to suck up a bunch of possessions without scoring can be minimized he's still a plus player. For that to happen other guys have to take more shots, and etc etc. I've said it before.

Teske alters the shots. Jon Teske didn't score but that might have been his best game of the season? I might be serious about that. His ten minutes saw him contest maybe a dozen shots, several of which looked like easy finishes until he got involved. Teske was able to fall off his defender despite the opposition starting their drive as Teske, back to the basketball, recovered on a pick and roll; he was only hit with one foul; he at one point intimidated Huerter into a bizarre miss.

I've said it before, but if Mo does go Teske is going to be a different but potentially just as effective post presence.

Don't look at it head on yet. 12/16 from the line. Lack of Matthews/Simpson FTAs (just four) a major factor there. Increased time for Poole very helpful; he's up to 82% on the year.

Wee bit fortunate. Michigan gave up too many good looks from the outside for Maryland to only hit three of them. Their two Just A Shooter guys are hitting 40% on the year and combined to go 1/10. Mostly this happened after the game was decided and closeouts came with less urgency.

Bracket glance. Michigan is now appearing on a fair number of five lines at the Bracket Matrix. Large Media Conglomerate Bracketing still has them as a six, but Michigan is now the top six at BM by some distance. I'd guess they stick there even if they go 1-1 at the Big Ten Tournament. Moving up would probably mean making the final with a win over MSU unless the teams directly in front of them (Kentucky, Rhode Island, Gonzaga, OSU) take a tumble.

Analysis: Once again, Michigan does a great job generating plenty of offense, albeit against a weak defensive team. They overpowered the Ice Devils early and often, getting in to the House and slot with relative ease. That continued through the first half of the game or so. Then, like last night, penalties and some coasting took over, and the game started to tighten up. The Wolverines were able to mostly finish this one off comfortably, though. Cooper Marody opened the scoring with a great drive down the left boards, deking Daccord and filling the net. Winborg lead a 2v1, was given the shot, and buried it. Tony Calderone also had an even strength goal on his breakaway. Going into the season-defining weekends, it will be huge to have Calderone scoring. He’s Michigan’s leading goal scorer, and they will need him once they start facing more top end defenses.

Maryland came into the season finale as a fringe bubble team, and for the second game in a row, Michigan went on the road and won against a team clinging to faint NCAA Tournament hopes on their Senior Night. This one was over well before halftime, as Michigan gained their footing after a few early turnovers and ran the Terrapins out of the building. Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman continued his excellent run of form, playing the best game as a Wolverine while wearing some goggles after having been poked in the eye earlier this week.

Michigan’s first four possessions were a Charles Matthews turnover, an Isaiah Livers turnover, a Zavier Simpson missed three, and a Simpson turnover. From there, Rahkman took over. He opened the scoring for Michigan with a three-pointer, and then - after Jordan Poole and Duncan Robinson entered the game - hit two more in quick succession: a corner three after his own offensive rebound, and a deep three off a switch against Michal Cekovsky. Rahkman would eventually score 22 points in the first half, including a buzzer-beating three to put Michigan up by 30 entering the break.

Rahkman’s shooting kept the Wolverines in it early, as Maryland’s offense was able to generate some good looks, but once Jon Teske checked in (and had a few excellent defensive possessions in a row), the Terrapin offense stalled out and wasn’t able to recover for the rest of the half. Teske entered the game for the first time when Michigan led 13-12, and they outscored Maryland 41-12 over the rest of the half. The onslaught started with a Robinson three, continued with seven straight points from Jaaron Simmons, included consecutive Poole threes, and Rahkman helped slam the door from there. Even a flubbed alley-oop attempt from Simpson to Robinson wound up resulting in two made free throws from Rahkman, in addition to his banked-in wing three and a ridiculous step-back three over Joshua Tomaic.

It was the best half Michigan has played this season, by far. Per SCACC Hoops, the Wolverines scored 1.64 points per possession and allowed just 0.76 - outscoring any team by almost a point per possession over an entire half is absurd, let alone in a road conference game. They made eleven threes (six of which came from Rahkman) and had an effective field goal percentage that was more than twice as high as Maryland’s. They only turned it over once after their initial struggles. Kevin Huerter and Bruno Fernando combined for 17 points, but the rest of Maryland’s players only had seven. Rahkman and company utterly silenced a pretty decent crowd, and they put the game on cruise control in the second half.

There were a few interesting things in that extended garbage time. Maryland started the half with the smallest lineup Michigan has seen all year, with 6’4 wing Darryl Morsell at the five; at first, it caused Michigan some problems on the offensive end, but eventually the Wolverines settled in after a few post entries and pick-and-roll dishes to the big men. The Terrapins got into the bonus early in the second half, as Anthony Cowan woke up and attacked the rim often - he finished with a team-high 17 points. Michigan also made a concerted effort to get Matthews involved, which paid off: he had a few nice drives that resulted in layups, and knocked down two threes from his left corner. After being held scoreless in the first half, he finished with 11 points.

In the end, Maryland was unable to get the deficit closer than 19 points, and Michigan played what was its most dominant performance since its target practice against the non-conference minnows at the end of December. There were some solid stints off the bench - Poole had 12 points in 12 first half minutes, and Robinson and Simmons each scored 7 - and Matthews had some encouraging plays, but the star was undoubtedly Rahkman. He had a career high 28 points, and also chipped in with 7 assists and 8 rebounds. Starting with the Purdue loss a month ago, he’s averaged 16.9 points, 3.9 assists, and 3.6 rebounds over a nine-game sample.

Michigan’s final three games were effectively toss-ups, and they won all three decisively: taking care of Ohio State at home, holding on against Penn State in Happy Valley, and then obliterating Maryland in College Park. The latest win moves Michigan up to 24-7 (13-5 Big Ten) and 15th nationally in Kenpom, and depending on tomorrow’s Nebraska - Penn State game, they might get a double bye in next week’s Big Ten Tournament. For context, last season’s Big Ten Tournament champion and Sweet 16 team finished the regular season at 20-11 (10-8 Big Ten) and 27th nationally in Kenpom.

Analysis: This was a similar output to the Notre Dame series, where Michigan jumped on ASU early and controlled most of the game until they got sloppy in the third period and took too many penalties. Just like their game last season, Michigan kept the puck and shot from everywhere on the ice.

They got deep in the House area early and finished three times in the first fifteen minutes. Sanchez scored off of a great pass from Marody that slid across the top of the crease. He also poked in a rebound a few minutes later to give Michigan the 2-1 lead. Michael Pastujov scored his fourth of the season on a rebound late in the first. Michigan tacked on a fourth in the second period after Warren circled the net and found Cecconi for a snipe from inside the dot. Michigan needed every bit of this…as we will get to the next couple of sections.

THE ESSENTIALS

THE US

With two wins against solid teams in their last two outings, bracket opinion on Michigan has shifted towards consensus. That consensus: the six line. Palm has come up; Lunardi has come down. The Matrix agrees. Maryland, currently 58th in RPI, is in fact an opportunity for a Q1 win and might move the needle more than you might expect; coupled with an couple wins in the Big Ten tournament a 5 is probably within reach. Lose and Michigan will be trying to stay off the 7 line.

As far as the team goes, offensive burdens continue to shift to Duncan Robinson and Jordan Poole and away from Charles Matthews, because the former two guys are hitting shots and Matthews has more turnovers than baskets in most games. Mathews is still a far superior defender and must be given a shot to stop doing... that, but Michigan doesn't have a lot of margin for error in a game Kenpom thinks they're a slight dog in.

THE LINEUP CARD

Projected starters are in bold. Hover over headers for stat explanations. The "Should I Be Mad If He Hits A Three" methodology: we're mad if a guy who's not good at shooting somehow hits one. Yes, you're still allowed to be unhappy if a proven shooter is left open. It's a free country.

Pos.

#

Name

Yr.

Ht./Wt.

%Min

%Poss

ORtg

SIBMIHHAT

G

10

Anthony Cowan

So.

6'0, 170

98*

23

113

No

Steph-mold shooter has had efficiency drop since last game. 46/37 but gets to line a ton at 84%. TOs an issue.

G

33

Dion Wiley

Jr.

6'4, 210

73

13

110

No

Just A Shooter hitting 40%.

G

23

Darryl Morsell

Fr.

6'4, 205

86

21

97

Very

Burlyguard drives a bunch; no threes, lot of TOs, 46% from two.

F

11

Kevin Huerter

So.

6'7, 190

86

21

118

No

61/43 shooter has eFG nearing the top 50, frequent assists but 21 TO rate.

…so there’s enough smoke that we should probably report the fire. Michigan’s embattled offensive coordinator Tim Drevno, by hook or by crook, appears to be leaving the program.

We had high hopes for Harbaugh’s longtime sidekick due to the regular asskickings Drevno’s wards handed out at Stanford, and there was a brief moment last year when it looked like the OL was growing into a similarly ferocious meat grinder.

Alas, nobody’s pass protection has significantly improved in three seasons, and a lot of Michigan’s problems last year and today go back to offensive tackle recruiting, which also goes back to Drevno. He was looking increasingly superfluous last year when Michigan brought in another offensive coordinator type in Pep Hamilton and another offensive line coach type in Greg Frey. With Harbaugh calling the plays, Pep still around, yet another OC type Jim McElwain joining the staff, and OL development guru Ed Warinner with the team in some capacity, “What precisely do you do here?” was slated to remain a valid question.